Page 32 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

them back to Freeman’s homestead. And maybe you think that wasn’t a big chore! A Buff Orpington chicken is a big chicken, and I weighed only 90 pounds.
I tied their feet together, as was the custom in transporting chickens, then joined several of them together with small rope. With the four hens hung over each of my shoulders, and with dozens and dozens of stops, I finally made it back to Freeman’s — an experience I’m not anxious to repeat.
Here, before I leave the subject of Lobo, I must tell another story about his trying to protect all of us from the rabid dog, and now the narrative of his priceless performance with the chickens. Both of these occasions were known personally to me, but the following tale was related to me by Dad Moore.
Lobo’s mother was a collie, and everybody said he was sired by a wolf, hence his name Lobo. He had a big broad head, quite unlike the long narrow head of a collie, and the whites of his eyes were reddish — both traits, Dad Moore said, being characteristic of a wolf.
When Lobo was a small puppy, his mother always went out to pasture to bring in the cows at milking time in the evenings. The cows were kept in the corral overnight, so the job had to be done only once a day.
One day the mother dog was injured in a trap and was unable to walk. As the men picked up the milk buckets, whose rattle was the signal for bringing in the cows, one man said to the other, “Well, we’re going to have to do our own wrangling today,” but looking up they saw that Lobo was already
out of the door and on his way to the pasture. He was very small to drive several large cows, so he performed that difficult task by nipping at their heels.
And some people speak of dumb animals!
I thoroughly enjoyed my solitude during the time I was alone at Dad’s cabin. I think it was the first time in my life I ever knew true serenity. The things which had been bothering me fell off me like dead leaves from a tree, and I found myself thinking, “Now, why was I concerned about that?”
Situated among the canyons as I was, I missed the beautiful sunrises we had enjoyed at Dad Moore’s. I remembered with such pleasure the times we sat on the east porch to watch the ever-changing panoply of exciting colors in the eastern sky. It was much more spectacular than the fast- fading final brilliant flash of the setting sun in the west.
Many times through the years I have been asked, “What on earth did you do to pass the time away?” In truth I never did have enough time to do all o the things I really wanted to do. I read, wrote letters, wrote poetry, visited, chopped wood, rode horseback.
I was an inveterate reader, and it has always been my philosophy that anyone who lies to read never becomes lonely or ever suffers from boredom. There is never enough time to read all of the things I want to read. There was a dearth of reading material then, but my family, and especially friends, kept me pretty well supplied. I hoarded my precious cargo of books as if they were all set with diamonds and